


Butterfly Garden

by thejilyship



Series: Happy Accidents [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Flirting, Fluff, Hogwarts, Sharing a Bed, accidental bed sharing, fem!James - Freeform, fem!Jily, soft girls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28460484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejilyship/pseuds/thejilyship
Summary: Lily comes back to the dorm really late one night, and in an effort not to wake anyone, she doesn't bother with the lights as she crawls into a bed she thinks is her own.It is not her own.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Series: Happy Accidents [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090721
Comments: 18
Kudos: 67
Collections: Fem! Jily





	Butterfly Garden

Lily had to practically drag herself up every single staircase between the hospital wing and the Gryffindor common room. It was well past midnight, and while she had a note in her hand from Madam Pomfrey, excusing her for being out in the corridors at such a late hour, Lily had run into no one on her way up to the tower.

Her feet were sore, her back was sore, her head ached, and she was beat. She had spent the entire day volunteering in the hospital wing after there had been a bout of food poisoning that had left the entire hospital wing completely full. Lily hadn’t known just how many students could be housed there before today.

When she finally slipped into the seventh-year girl’s dormitory, as quietly as she could, she toed off her shoes by the door and mustered up all the strength that she had left, to take a shower. She needed to was off this day before she could truly rest.

She walked silently past a snoring Marlene, then her own bed and Jamie’s were empty in the middle, with Mary sleeping quietly at the end.

Lily looked at Jamie’s empty bed for a moment and then shook her head. It wasn’t Lily’s job to wonder where Jamie was, or why she wasn’t in bed. Of course, Jamie was _supposed_ to be in bed, as it was after lights out, but still, Lily didn’t need to worry about it.

Luckily, she was too tired to think much on it. She dug through her trunk, casting a silent _muffliato_ spell to contain the noise, and then went to take a quick shower.

When she came back out, the entire dorm seemed even darker. A cloud must have been covering the moon now. She almost cast _lumos_ , but Mary never slept with her drapes drawn shut, and she didn’t want to wake her.

So, she dropped her dirty clothes at the foot of her bed and slowly shuffled along until she felt her pillow. She pulled the blankets back, crawled onto the bed, and then pulled the drapes shut.

She collapsed in a heap of exhaustion, thinking that her bed didn’t quite smell right, it smelled better. But before she could think about why that was or match the scent to anything, or anyone, in particular, she was asleep.

oOo

Jamie was dead on her feet.

By the time that she managed to drag herself up the staircase and open the door to the seventh-year girl’s dormitory, she thought that maybe she should have just slept on the couch in the common room.

She managed to keep quiet as she closed the door behind her and started toward her bed, the window between her bed and Lily’s, now glowing faintly as the sun started to make it’s slow climb over the mountains. It would still be as hour or so before it had truly risen.

She tripped over a pile of clothes she didn’t remember leaving near her trunk and managed to catch herself on the post of her bed.

That’s when she noticed that Lily’s bed was empty.

She narrowed her eyes and looked toward the bathroom. It was only four in the morning, no one was up now, but Lily’s bed wasn’t only empty, it was unslept in.

Lily wasn’t one to break the rules, that’s how she had become the Head Girl, but perhaps she had fallen ill with food poisoning as well. Or maybe she had crashed in the hospital wing after helping for so long yesterday.

Jamie had helped out for a few hours, but she needed to leave before the moon came up so she could help Remus. He had finally transformed back into himself about thirty minutes ago, and so Sirius, Peter and Jamie sneaked out of the Shrieking Shack before Madam Pomfrey came to collect him.

She sat on her trunk and pulled off her shoes, then stripped out of her clothes and dropped them onto the pile of clothes already at the foot of her bed. She pulled on an oversized tee-shirt and then walked around and pulled back the drapes. She didn’t remember closing them, but she was too tired to worry much about that.

She climbed in, tossed her glasses on her bedside table, along with her wand, closed the drapes around her and curled up in a ball. She pulled the warm comforter all the way up to her ears, took a deep breath and let it out.

Tonight hadn’t been the worst night. Remus had even seemed to have fun for a while.

And they had managed to prevent him from-

The blankets were tugged from Jamie’s hands, exposing her shoulder.

Jamie blinked into the dark and then noticed the sound of someone breathing next to her, on the other side of the bed.

She stuck her hand out of the drapes and pulled her wand in, casting _lumos_ as she sat upright _._ A pile of red hair was sticking out over the top of Jamie’s comforter, though the rest of Lily was concealed.

Jamie blinked at the blurry shape of Lily Evans’ head for a moment and then panicked. Had she gotten into the wrong bed? She was about to jump out of the bed and hope that no one would ever find out about her mistake, but then she caught sight of the stuffed animals at the foot of her bed, the black dog and the fawn-colored deer that Sirius had gotten her for Christmas. A gift that Remus said was a bit too on the nose but had caused them to all laugh.

This was most definitely her own bed.

And Lily was in it.

Lily Evans was in her bed.

Why was Lily Evans in her bed?

Lily shifted, part of her face becoming visible as the blankets moved down a bit. Jamie flicked her wand, and the light went out.

She laid back down, though this time she made no movement to cover herself or get comfortable. She simply stared at the top of her bed, her lips pressed together, and her brow furrowed.

What was she meant to do in this situation? Should she wake Lily up and ask her what the bloody hell was going on? Should she get up and go sleep on the couch? Should she grab the mirror and beg Sirius to tell her what to do?

She looked back toward Lily, though she couldn’t see her in the dark.

Had Lily meant to climb into Jamie’s bed? She had noticed that Lily’s bed was untouched, and those clothes that Jamie had tripped over, they must have been Lily’s. Which meant that when Lily got back to the dorm, she had gotten in Jamie’s bed instead of her own.

Lily had never done that before, so it didn’t seem likely that it would be an accident. But it seemed even more unlikely that it would have been on purpose.

They were friends, very close friends even. It had taken them a long time to get to this point, and while Jamie was still very much in love with Lily, and likely always would be, she didn’t think that Lily felt the same way.

So she took a deep breath and tried to think about this in a different way.

Lily had slept in Mary’s bed before.

Actually, Lily had slept in Mary’s bed so many times that Jamie had to go and get her teeth looked at by Madam Pomfrey because she’d gone to bed clenching her jaw and grinding her teeth and woken up with a sore mouth.

But Lily and Mary were best friends, and it didn’t mean anything to them to share a bed.

Lily could have gotten into Jamie’s bed for the same reason that she normally went to Mary. But she’d found Jamie’s bed empty and then fallen asleep while waiting for her to come back to the dorm.

Jamie didn’t really want the reason that Lily was asleep in her bed to be because she thought of Jamie in the same way that she thought of Mary, but it seemed the most likely of options. She supposed she should be glad to have gotten so close with Lily this last year, but she didn’t think she would ever stop wanting more, not where Lily was involved.

Jamie relaxed a bit and turned toward Lily, carefully pulling the blankets up over her shoulder again. The room outside the bed was slowly getting lighter, and while the drapes kept out most of the light, Jamie could see the outline of Lily’s face now.

The redhead sighed, nestled against the pillow and then, made Jamie question whether or not she needed to get her ears checked.

“ _Jamie,”_

Jamie was pretty sure that she was dead now.

There was no chance that in the land of the living, Lily Evans had just sighed her name while sleeping in her bed, so the only other option was that she was dead.

She supposed that she could have been dreaming, but this seemed a bit too real to be a dream.

Lily stirred and then her face screwed up before she was sitting bolt upright in bed, a hand on her chest as she looked around.

Jamie slowly sat up as well, not wanting to startle her anymore than she already seemed to be.

The dream she’d been having that caused her to say Jamie’s name, did not appear to be a good dream.

Lily’s gaze locked on Jamie, she could feel it more than she could see it.

“I’m in your bed,” Lily said quietly.

So maybe she hadn’t climbed in on purpose.

“S’okay.” Jamie shrugged, trying not to sound as disappointed as she was. “I’m guessing you thought it was your bed.”

Lily ran a hand through her hair, pushing it back away from her face, something that Jamie had noticed her doing more frequently. “Yeah,” She nodded, her voice quiet. She looked away from Jamie, and Jamie felt her stomach drop. Lily was going to leave now, she was going to go back to her own bed. “Yeah, I must have-“ She cut herself off and rubbed her hands over her eyes now. “Did I wake you?”

Jamie shook her head, “No. I just got in, actually. Almost fell asleep before I noticed you were in here. You’re kind of a cover hog.”

“Am I?” Lily was still covering her face, and it was still dark, so Jamie was at a loss as to how Lily was feeling about the situation.

“Yeah,” Jamie clenched and unclenched her fist before she laid back down.

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright, I don’t mind sharing with you.” Jamie squeezed her eyes shut and buried a hand in her hair.

But then Lily laid back down. “I’m still sorry. I didn’t even ask.”

“You didn’t realize it was my bed. It’s not a big deal.”

“Feels like it is,” Lily said so quietly that Jamie didn’t think she was meant to hear. “Why did you get in so late?”

Jamie sucked in a breath, glad that Lily didn’t appear to be about to leave. “You know how it goes.”

Lily turned her face toward her, and Jamie wished that there was a little more light. Jamie was already blind without her glasses. “What an informative answer.”

“I was with the lads,” Jamie shrugged. “Not one of us own a watch so time is easy to lose track of.”

“Fine, don’t tell me.” Lily looked back up, pulling the blankets back to her chin. Jamie hid her smile in the blankets.

“When did you get in? It had to have been late.”

“Nearly one? It was late. I didn’t realize that the hospital wing had all those extra rooms in the back. It’s completely full.”

Jamie nodded. “I wonder why the food went bad.”

“That is a mystery for someone else to figure out. Madam Pomfrey had me making tonics all evening.”

“I should have stayed to help longer.”

“I shouldn’t have stayed quite so long,” Lily laughed quietly.

Jamie wanted to reach out to her, but she kept her hands to herself. “We should get some sleep. You’ve only been asleep for a few hours and I’ve yet to get any sleep at all.”

Lily was quiet for so long that Jamie was starting to think that she had already fallen back asleep, but then Lily rolled on her side to face Jamie and sighed. “You’re right. G’night, Jamie.”

“G’night,” Jamie said quietly, her stomach rivaling any butterfly garden.

oOo

Lily didn’t fall back asleep, she laid awake with her eyes shut until Jamie’s breathing had slowed and evened out. When she was sure that the other girl was asleep, she opened her eyes. It was slightly lighter now, but Jamie’s face was still mostly in shadows.

She couldn’t believe that she’d gotten into the wrong bed. That she’d gotten into Jamie’s bed.

Lily had fancied Jamie for, well she wasn’t really sure. When she had told Mary a few weeks ago that she was pretty sure she fancied Jamie, Mary had laughed at her and said that she had been waiting for Lily to tell her that for years now. When Lily had looked rather confused about Mary’s response, Mary calmly and carefully explained to Lily that she had always known that Lily had fancied Jamie.

_“You pay more attention to her than anyone else in the entire school,” Mary was sitting cross-legged on her bed, painting her nails a bright yellow. “You always have. You may have just realized that you fancy her, but this is not a new thing.”_

Lily was then forced to think back on her rocky relationship with Jamie and she had to agree with Mary. Lily hadn’t known at the time that she sought out arguments with Jamie in the beginning of sixth year because she wanted the other girl’s attention and couldn’t think of another way to get it, but it made sense to Lily now.

She shouldn’t have stayed in her bed though. Mary had informed her on multiple occasions that she talked in her sleep, and after the dream that she’d had about Jamie that had woken her up, she didn’t think she needed to be taking this kind of risk.

She still felt a bit flushed from the dream, and then waking up and finding that Jamie was very much in bed with her for real, had only made her more flushed.

When she had seen Jamie sitting there beside her, her fingertips and lips had burned with phantom touches that hadn’t happened.

And now she was laying next to Jamie, staring at her as she slept.

She needed to pluck up the courage to do something about this crush she had, but she didn’t know what she was meant to do. Her and Jamie were _finally_ friends. They were finally past the point where they had to argue about everything, they spent most of their time together laughing now instead of shouting. Jamie was one of Lily’s favorite people in the world, and she didn’t want to do or say anything that would jeopardize that.

As Lily watched Jamie and tried to come up with the words to a conversation, she wasn’t sure she would ever be brave enough to start, Jamie rolled onto her stomach and stretched out, one of her legs brushing up against Lily’s. Her entire person was closer to Lily now, her face at the edge of the pillow and Lily’s in the middle of her own.

It was four in the morning. She wasn’t going to find the words that had eluded her for the last month now.

And if she shifted closer to Jamie before she closed her eyes and fell back to sleep, well, she could hardly be blamed.

oOo

Jamie woke up with her face buried in dark red hair.

This was an excellent way to discover that last night had not been some kind of fever dream brought about by a lack of sleep. Lily really had gotten into Jamie’s bed, and then decided to stay there.

And at some point, the two of them had tangled themselves together.

Jamie didn’t think she could move any part of her body without waking Lily. Their legs were entwined, Jamie’s arms were wrapped around Lily’s middle, her nose in Lily’s hair. And Lily was just as wrapped up in Jamie.

One of her legs was bent, hitched up over Jamie’s hip, her head was tucked mostly under Jamie’s chin, and she had her arms between the two of them, but one of her hands was resting on Jamie’s arm, as if it might be keeping Jamie’s arm where it was.

Jamie could feel Lily’s breath against her chest, through her tee-shirt, and she slowly took a deep breath, trying to ground herself in this moment. She slowly reached up with the arm that Lily wasn’t holding and started playing with Lily’s hair. She didn’t want Lily to wake up like she had earlier and jump out of her arms. She couldn’t see Lily’s face from this angle, so she was a bit surprised when Lily spoke up.

“Are you awake?”

Jamie was confused, but she smiled, “Just woke up.” She said quietly, still twirling Lily’s hair around her fingers. “At least I think I’m awake.” She said this even quieter.

“It’s pretty late.” Lily’s grip on Jamie’s arm tighten slightly, but she didn’t move away. “Marlene and Mary both left, so I’m guessing it’s after ten.”

“It’s Saturday.” Jamie shrugged, “We can have a lie in.”

“I think we have.”

They were both so still, both talking so quietly, so afraid to shatter something.

“Right,” Jamie wrapped a strand of Lily’s hair around her index finger. Lily slowly shifted her leg off of Jamie’s hip and Jamie tried not to feel too disappointed. “Guess we should find something to eat.”

“Yeah,” Lily paused. “In a few minutes.”

James pressed her lips together and nudged her nose against the top of Lily’s head. “I’m sure we’ve missed breakfast already anyway.”

“Probably.” Lily agreed.

Jamie’s throat started to feel dry, as the only words she wanted to say now were a bit telling and she was not finding a reason that she shouldn’t say them. Not when Lily was tucked up against her like she was, not when she was staying put, when she was asking for just a few more minutes.

Her heart started beating faster and her grip on Lily tightened. Lily pulled her face away from Jamie’s chest and tiled her head so she could look at the other girl. Jamie gave her a small smile. “Alright, Evans?”

Lily gave her a small smile. “Your heart is racing. Are you alright?”

“Don’t call me out,” Jamie muttered, attempting to hide her face in Lily’s hair again.

“Sorry. I’m alright.” Jamie peeked back at Lily, her eyes clear from their current distance. They were sparkling. “Brilliant, actually.”

“Did you really not mean to get in my bed last night?” She asked softly.

Lily slowly reached out and brushed an errant curl away from Jamie’s face. “Happy accident.”

Jamie felt her smile growing. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I think so too.” Jamie looked over Lily’s face, emboldened by how close she was keeping to Jamie, how she was looking at her. “Won’t be an accident when I do it tonight though.”

Lily bit her lip, still grinning and Jamie felt her hoard of butterflies return in full force. “You’re gonna get into my bed tonight?”

Jamie nodded, twice and quickly. “If it means I get to wake up like this, you’ll have quite the time keeping me out.” Lily laughed and it had always been one of Jamie’s favorite sounds in the world, but there was something special and light about the sound now.

“Let’s go on picnic.” Lily said. “Before I go back to the hospital wing, let’s go on a picnic, just you and me.”

Jamie’s heart joined her stomach in it’s fluttering. “Yeah?”

“If you want.” Lily amended unnecessarily.

“Are you kidding? Of course I want to go out with you- not that you just asked me out, you asked me on a picnic-“

“Jamie, will you go out with me?” Lily interrupted, still laughing, her smile the widest that Jamie had ever seen it.

“Yes,” She nodded, leaning forward to bury her face in Lily’s shoulder. “Yes, yes, yes.” Lily’s arms wrapped around Jamie’s neck and she started combing her fingers through Jamie’s hair until she thought she might just melt.

**Author's Note:**

> This is much longer than I thought it would be, but I'm not upset about it. This needed to be brought into the world, and here it is.  
> Hope you liked it!


End file.
